Blind To Love
by Sleepy Lotus
Summary: More than a year after Henry leaves Toronto, Vicki's disease takes her vision completely. She becomes a bitter recluse in her apartment, shutting out the world she can no longer see. Desperate, Cellucci calls upon Henry to save her sanity. Henry/OC/Vicki
1. A Torch of Remembrance

**Blind To Love**

**By: SleepyLotus**

**A/N: I apologize for the Henry/OC chapter, (I'm not usually a fan myself) but I wanted some contrast and perspective for Henry with someone completely opposite of Vicki. Our beloved P.I. will show in later chaps. Cheers!**

**Chapter 1**

Henry had barely risen from his day rest, when his cell phone rang upon the bedside table, screen flashing an unfamiliar number. He was not sure why, but a sudden sense of foreboding filled him, at the prospect of answering it. The vampire nearly let it go to voicemail, until at the last moment a curious impulse overcame him.

"This is Fitzroy."

"Henry, this is Mike Cellucci."

Silence, long and pregnant. What the devil was Cellucci doing, calling him?

"Is there something I can help you with, detective?" The words were polite enough, but the tone cold as a winter in Svalbard.

"I know you don't really want to talk to me, but it's about Vicki."

At the sound of her name, Henry's heart beat, just once, an adrenaline surge coursing through his veins. Ghosts of the past ambushing him, plucking painfully at his heartstrings.

"Is she alright?" asked Henry quietly. Was she ever, really? That woman was always sticking her nose into something. No sense of self preservation what so ever. Too brave, too hard-headed, too--

"She isn't in any trouble, if that's what you mean. For once… But…" Cellucci sighed, obviously reluctant to even be speaking to the vampire he jealously loathed. "It's her eyesight. It's gone drastically downhill, Fitzroy. She's pretty much blind now."

Henry felt his heart clench with the thought. The tragedy. The injustice of the universe. "I am very sorry to hear that, Mike, but I'm not sure what that could possibly have to do with me now."

He regretted sounding cold, but what could he do for her? She'd chosen her path. She hadn't chosen him. He had a new life now, a new city, new house.

New lover.

The thought of Juliana filled Henry's heart with a lightness he had not known in years. To be loved and accepted by someone so thoroughly -- it was more than he could have ever hoped for in this new chapter of his life. He and Juliana were so happy, so ridiculously happy. She was so open and giving and loving -- creative and curious and playful -- she inspired him every day.

And that was the way love should be, without fear. With open hearts.

They were good for each other, things were working for now. They fed each other's creativity, he was drawing better than he had in years, and she painting and writing. And the lovemaking…just the briefest thought sent a shiver over his skin.

No, he wouldn't be rearranging his life for Vicki Nelson anymore than he already had.

As though sensing that he was about to hang up the phone, Mike groped, "Henry, wait, please! Don't hang up!"  
Still there was silence, but no tell tale click, so Cellucci assumed he'd retained Henry's attention for a few moments longer.

"She's shut me out, Henry. She locks herself up in that apartment now, locked away from the world. She's dying slowly, Henry. Maybe not directly from the disease, but its just as real."

"And just what do you think I can do to help, Cellucci?" asked Henry angrily. "Storm the doors? Force her to drink my blood, so that she may rise again and be healed? I'm sure that would go over really well."

There was a silence on the other end of the line, only Mike's breathing signaling that he was still there. Henry could nearly sense the detective's apprehension, his embarrassment, over the phone. But perhaps most telling, his disappointment.

That had been _exactly _what Cellucci had had in mind. Were things so bad with Vicki, that he would be so desperate to save her? He would give her up to vampirism, to see her saved?

"Have you discussed this with Vicki?" Henry asked quietly, the undertones of anger heating his words.

"No," Mike reluctantly answered. "But I thought that maybe if you just showed up… there could be a chance."

A bitter and ironic laughter escaped Henry's lips. "_Just showed up_. It sounds as though she's stubborn as ever. What could possibly make her want me now, if she sent me away a year ago?"

"God damn it, brat prince, this isn't _about _you," grumbled Cellucci. "She misses you, and she needs your help. Come see her at least. If she tells you to go to hell, well, then at least you tried. Believe me, pal, you are my last resort for her."

Henry's lip curled, the pain of losing her he'd managed to bury deep inside rearing its ugly little head once more within his heart. _She missed him_. Did she really? Or would Mike say anything, to get Henry back into Toronto again? It was impossible to know. That is, without showing up on her doorstep.

And what of Juliana? How would she take such a thing? _I love you, but a former lover of mine, well, _almost lover_, who spurned me, and could never really allow herself to love me, is sick, and I was wondering if you might mind terribly if I leave for a year to make her into a vampire? I'll be back before you know it…_

Juliana would be heartbroken, he was sure. And that was a price he was not willing to pay.

Torn, pained by the prospect, Henry shook his head adamantly, but realizing Mike could not see it, said, "I'm sorry, Cellucci, but I'm afraid I can't be of service."

He hung up the phone, to find his lover leaning against the doorframe of their bedroom, the question of _who was that? _written across her fair features. Her blond hair fell to her waist in waves, a camisole and boxer shorts leaving very little of her voluptuous curves to the imagination. He'd gone back to _pretty _again, his usual artsy type, her pale skin and classical features fit for a renaissance angel. A safety net for a broken heart? Perhaps, or just a tried and true formula.

Henry felt the sudden urge to grab that soft golden hair by the fistfulls, and he held his arms out to her in invitation.

She did not ask what was wrong, she wasn't one for redundant questions, and they didn't pry each other for details about every little thing. Juliana knew something bothered her lover, but that he would reveal it to her in good time, if he wished. She merely provided the comfort she sensed he needed, standing between his legs, drawing his head to rest on her breast, fingers sliding through his curls.

How much had she heard of his conversation? He'd told her about the events in Toronto, why he'd fled to Saint Louis. With enough information, he was sure she could put together the pieces, and he wasn't sure he wanted her to.

Languidly, Henry raised his head to plant a kiss upon the swell of her breast, scraping his teeth against her.

"Hungry?" she asked, voice gone breathy with desire in a matter of moments. Always, she wanted him.

"For you? Starving." The vampire swept her up in his arms, rolling her to the bed to devour her with kisses. He suddenly felt very grateful they had the entire night ahead of them; he had a feeling they were going to need it. Though feeding and lovemaking were not always inseparable, that night he needed her fiercely, all of her. The past weighed heavily upon him, and he sought refuge from those ghosts in her sweet charms, her secret treasure.

He needed to remind himself of all he had here, and not to stray to thoughts of what might have been.

It didn't matter now.

He almost believed it.

A quiet sadness filled Juliana's large blue eyes as she gazed up at him, the turmoil reflected in his own stare that he tried to hide as he loved her.

She almost believed it too.

That she could hold on to him. That she maybe even had some right to the marvel that was Henry Fitzroy, that he belonged to her, and not to the world.

But if she'd learned anything in this short, crazy life, it was that the sweetest love can never last. In the end, everyone must pay it forward; she had a feeling her turn was fast approaching. And so she fought to enjoy every moment she had left with him, to not succumb to grief and revel in the sensations his practiced body evoked in hers, to absorb the love he felt for her into her breaking heart. These were the memories that would give her strength, in the loneliness to come, she knew.

When the sorrow and regret threatened to consume her, her demons waiting in the dark, she would drive them away with this torch of remembrance. She would hold it high and declare, _once, she had been loved by the vampire prince Henry FitzRoy. He had found her worthy, and for that gift she would always treasure his memory._

But she was not the only one, she knew, and suspected someone else, the one before her who had infuriated and enchanted him so, now needed him more than she.

_I love you, Henry, so I will let you go, _she thought sadly as they lay in the quiet after their fevered embrace. His long fingers slid through her tresses, tracing lazy circles across her back that caused her to shiver with pleasure. She was faintly aware of an ache in her neck, two small fang marks, but it was a sweet pain she paid no mind. Though he touched her lovingly, she knew his mind was elsewhere, a place far north of their sleepy Midwestern city, and a woman whose eyesight had betrayed her.

_ And perhaps if you love me enough, you will come back to me someday. _


	2. We're All Damsels Deep Down

_Chapter 2: We're All Damsels Deep Down_

Henry turned up the collar of his coat, that familiar biting cold whipping down the street. He lingered in shadow, slipping like a spectre through the night. Once, this had been his, all of it. His city, his hunting grounds. No one had cared to claim it in his place. The rumors of the coming demon infestation scared away all possible takers.

And just what the bloody hell was _he _doing there?

What indeed?

As he walked he thought back on how exactly he'd come to be here. How _Juliana_, of all people, had been the one to persuade him. The one to let him go. A great ache squeezed his heart at the thought of her, and meekly, he attempted to push it away. The memory of their love making, passionate and almost frantic, for the week following Celluci's call, as though they both sensed the dark wings of changing closing in about them. And the way he'd caught her crying, so quietly, turned on her side. She tried to disguise it as heavy breathing, chest convulsing with the effort not to sob, but he knew the creature for what it was. _You're the only one who's ever known when I cry_, she sighed as he kissed away her tears, demanded to know what was amiss.

And she told him, urged him, _go back to her. _

They argued for another week. He couldn't understand how she could be so selfless - he knew she hurt deeply, that the thought of being apart pained her as much as him.

But slowly, he began to see, that for her and her writer's mind it lay in the story. The story of he and Vicki. That things weren't supposed to end the way they had - maybe she didn't believe in happy endings, but she believed in _meaningful _ones. Too many stories ended poorly, in her opinion. _She's sick, Henry. She needs you now; as much as any damsel has ever needed a prince._

_ Vicki's no damsel, lover, _Henry had tried to reason with her.

_We're all damsels, deep down, _Juliana insisted. _Some of us just hide it better than others. _

So there he was, in Toronto again. Winding through the streets, slicing through shadows, until he arrived below Vicki's window. A single lamp burned, a lonely yellow glow through the window. He wondered if perhaps she was not as blind as Celluci claimed.

Still, his thoughts caught on Juliana, as he climbed the fire escape. Henry had offered her the house, that gorgeous old house nestled between towering sycamores of the Central West End, where they'd lived and loved and created - but she'd opted to travel instead. _It would seem too empty without you_, she insisted. She'd been wanting to tour Europe for some time, had even been planning to, before she met him and put things on hold. Gladly, it seemed, but now the opportunity knocked again, to go her own way. She was a free spirit too, he knew a small part of her felt relief in being left to her own devices again. They had tentative plans, to meet in a year. Because if all went as planned, within a year, he and Vicki would-

Crouched on the fire escape, Henry froze at the sight of her, the top of her blond head peeking over the back of the recliner, though the TV remained dark. But the amber glow of scotch in a tumbler betrayed her, and Henry thought that maybe she listened to voices of her own making.

The place was in disarray, nothing unusual, but for perfectly clear walkways winding through the furniture like a game trail.

Something caused her to stand, and thinking he'd been caught, the vampire went completely still. She walked to the window, slowly, feeling it out, stopping before it as though she stared out through the glass. But her eyes were unfocused, and it was apparent to Henry that she could not make out the shape of the city before her, only imagined the view.

The vampire had doubted his actions since first arriving, doubted his decision to leave St. Louis, his new life, Juliana, all for the possibility that for once Vicki might let him save her.

She never_ let_ him save her.

But at seeing her face, clean of makeup, hair tousled but still beautiful, all his doubts dissolved, replaced by a hardened resolve, his heart filling with love once more. How was it he'd been able to leave in the first place? How had he looked her in the eye, and said those fateful words:

_So be it_.

Henry had always had a weakness for the dramatic, but he'd outdone himself that time, regretting it all from the very moment the door shut behind him. He'd hoped to flush out a heart felt confession, to hear her admit she loved him as he loved her - it didn't exactly go as planned, as _nothing _ever went as planned with the headstrong P.I.

Almost on impulse, Henry flattened one hand against the window pane, standing barely a breath from her, but for the barrier of glass between them. Curiously, she tilted her head, in such a way that Henry wondered if she could not sense him. Lips barely moving, she whispered, "My prince - methinks I see my prince, Horatio. In my mind's eye."

Henry's gut clenched at her twist upon Shakespeare's words - a few of his fantasies had involved she, and he, curled in his great bed, reading the bard's words aloud to each other. Perhaps Romeo and Juliette would be fitting to them, but Hamlet had always been one of his favorites.

As Vicki raised her hand Henry held a breath he no longer needed to survive, and the heat of her pulse thrummed through the glass and into him as she spread her palm over his. It took every shred of his will not to push through the glass, that measly barrier, and grab her up in his arms. She could feel him, he knew then, even if she didn't know it.

Shaking her head angrily, Vicki tore herself from the window, fist clenched, brow furrowed with pain. "You're losing your mind, Nelson," she growled at herself, and whirled to storm to the bedroom, barely missing the side table, and collapsed upon her bed.

Henry listened closely, and when she finally fell into a deep sleep, he entered through the window. Perhaps with help from the whiskey, or the weight of the world, she slept soundly as Henry tidied the apartment. He moved nothing crucial, but cleaned the dust she could not see, the flecks of food on the plates, the cobwebs, the crumbs. The small details that seem menial until they can't be taken care of regularly. Could she not afford a cleaning service? He suspected it had more to do with not wanting to be seen in such a vulnerable state, by anyone, until she'd learned to conquer it in her own way.

Well, he had a solution to offer her, didn't he, Henry mused, if there was a chance of getting through to her. He imagined she'd become even more stubborn, even quicker to refuse a helping hand. But he had to try. He'd given up on her once, and he wasn't proud of that. This could be a chance for redemption for them both.

He hoped, and he prayed, and most importantly, soon he would act.


End file.
